Westside Toastmasters is located in Los Angeles and Santa Monica, California

COMMUNITY BUILDING LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Activity 1: Ownership

Instructions. One intent of inner leadership is to get followers to accept a kind of feeling of coownership of the work community and its goals. The idea is that “owners” become more than workers, they commit to the work community, its work, and its success. In effect, they come to feel they are working for themselves. They will do better work, more work, higher-quality work because they see the tasks in personal, ownership terms. They have to deliver because they are free to do the work their own way.

Brainstorm a listing of specific actions you can take individually in your work community to help all members take ownership for their part of the group’s work.

Include ideas that will work with coworkers, customers, suppliers, and other specific constituency groups relevant to your work community.

List actions you can take immediately—or almost immediately—and without significant new resources.

List actions you can take that may require some time or other resources.

Prioritize your lists in terms of the most feasible and efficacious.

Take all possible steps to implement these actions.

Activity 2: Questionnaire—Pressure Points

Instructions. This activity will help you identify and assess the strengths of pressure points in your work community as a way to begin to improve member performance.

Read each statement and circle the number that matches your response to how typical this situation is in your work community.

15. Use a performance management or appraisal system for all followers that includes internal customer feedback?

1 2 3 4 5

16. Regularly meet with followers to discuss their needs?

1 2 3 4 5

17. Encourage followers to set up or join to work on process improvements?

1 2 3 4 5

18. Ensure that individual follower goals and work group or department goals relate to the achievement or system goals?

1 2 3 4 5

19. Give people a role in introducing change?

1 2 3 4 5

20. Set up some form of variable compensation, such as bonuses, tied to system goals?

1 2 3 4 5

Transfer the number that you recorded for each question to the corresponding space in the second column of the chart on the next page.

Add the scores in each section for each pressure point. Place these totals in the third column. (Note: The larger the number, the more effective you are in each category.)

Pressure Points

Individual Question Score

Total Score

Vision focus and alignment

Q 3 _____

Q13 _____

_____

Q 8 _____

Q18 _____

_____

Communication flow

Q 1 _____

Q11 _____

_____

Q 6 _____

Q16 _____

_____

Member involvement

Q 2 _____

Q12 _____

_____

Q 7 _____

Q17 _____

_____

Leading change

Q 4 _____

Q14 _____

_____

Q 9 _____

Q19 _____

_____

Clear links between performance and consequences

Q 5 _____

Q15 _____

_____

Q10 _____

Q20 _____

_____

What is getting in the way of your effective use of the pressure points you scored low on?

How could you effectively leverage pressure in your system?

Are these pressure points (areas of potential change or destruction) in your work community?

How would your coworkers view these pressure points?

Activity 3: Are You a Team Leader?

Instructions. Leading teams is an important inner leader task. Skill in this technique can help inner leaders accomplish both their personal and the corporation’s goals. Completing the following questions may help provide insight into your present capacity to lead teams and point to areas for further development.

Rate yourself on each of the following items using the scale provided here:

1

2

3

4

5

Stronglydisagree

Somewhatdisagree

Neither agreenor disagree

Somewhatagree

Stronglyagree

_____ 1. I enjoy helping others get their jobs done.

_____ 2. Managing others is a full-time job in and of itself.

_____ 3. I am good at negotiating for resources.

_____ 4. People often come to me to help them with interpersonal conflicts.

_____ 5. I tend to be uncomfortable when I am not fully involved in the task that my group is doing.

_____ 6. It is hard for me to provide people with positive feedback.

_____ 7. I understand organizational politics well.

_____ 8. I get nervous when I do not have expertise at a task my group is performing.

_____ 9. An effective leader needs to have full involvement with his or her team.